I don’t always find it easy to pray. Often I’m over-tired, distracted, caught-up in tasks, pressured by work, short on time, lacking the appetite for prayer or more strongly drawn to do something else.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran pastor executed by the Nazis in the dying days of the Second World War, has been recognized (perhaps by Protestant more than Catholic theologians) as one of the leading Christian thinkers of the 20th century. He was that, but he was much more: visionary, prophet, spy and martyr.